Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

At my aunt’s place

It's my second day in Beijing. So cold. I look outside and the vapid air seems to have made everything sterile. The temperature is maybe around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Reminds me of my alma mater in Michigan during the winter and how the icy wind would freeze your ears if you happened to be out.

I've been living with my aunt, or my gu gu ??, who is also my father's cousin. They have an apartment, in an older part of Beijing built a few decades ago. The building and the surrounding complexes are inlaid with brick and concrete, some rusted metal caging the windows on the lower floors. Not much luster, a lot of brown and grey. The builders clearly did not think so much of exterior design, just walls with rows of windows, and functionally plain. The cobbled streets here are uneven, narrow enough that one car can only enter at a time, and cratered with cracks; I worry if I run over it I'll trip and fall. The leaveless trees and plants all are barren from the weather. Makes me feel like I'm living near an old factory.

My aunt seemed to be a bit unsure of how I would adapt to their home. “It's small,” she said several times as I walked in for the first time. She has seen pictures of my parent’s house in Oregon, a very large three-story house, built in the woods in Oregon.

But I like their 2-bedroom apartment. Its old exterior belies the fact of how inside it's a typical 21st century home. Inside their living room, they have a large HD TV, which also happens to be a flat screen. Later I connect my computer into their high-speed Internet. The next day I use their futuristic shower; basically a sleek circular pod with shinny nobs that seems like it would be more suitable in a sci-fi movie. I feel cozy and warm inside, white walls all around, with plenty of art on them, as I sit and drink from a tea cup I place on a glass table nearby.

My aunt has a 9-year old daughter. And she's very fun to be with. Her English name is Lisa, but her Chinese name is Zhang Ziying. She told me she received the English name as part of her English class with her foreign teacher. All the students who didn't have a name had to basically draw out a name from a list.

It's very funny and cute. I'm an only child. But Lisa calls me ge ge ??, or older brother. Usually with my cousins they all just call me Michael, but with a Chinese accent. However Lisa, has decided to call me ge ge, since I'm an older cousin of hers, and thus a kind of brother to her. At one point, I called her mei mei, ?? or younger sister, sort of fumbling the words as they came out of my mouth.

Today I helped her with her homework. That was pretty interesting. I'm a 24-year-old and I'm having trouble completing the homework of a 3rd grader. The homework was her Chinese language homework. I realized that a lot of what I've learned is more language for practical situations, not really literature. So I was at loss when she first said if I knew the ugly duckling story; she said it by its Chinese name — chou xiao ya ???. I also realized that my writing abilities aren't as good as I thought, in that in trying to actually write the words with a pencil, the words for some reason or another were not coming up. Easy word like pencil, qian bi ??, or brush, shua ?, or even the first part of happiness, xing fu ??. Words I can easily type in the computer or recognize when reading, but a frustrating challenge when trying to handwrite them. One unique feature of the Mandarin language is that the pronunciation of the characters has little to do with the actual formation of the characters. It's funny, I've studied Chinese nearly all my life and yet if I went to elementary school here, I'd probably fail it. Then it jokingly occurred to me I should probably just enroll myself into the third-grade here.

Like me, Lisa is also an only child. Really, most children across China have no siblings due to the government's one-child policy. My Aunt worries this may affect her development as she grows up. Many parents are concerned a new generation of spoiled children will come as a result. I wonder about this as well. My college students that I teach are part of this generation.

But I guess at least for the next few days Lisa will have an older brother, and I will have a younger sister. I think I like it this way better.